Artifact
Artifact now features two games: Artifact Classic, the original Dota 2 trading card game, and Artifact Foundry, a special edition with streamlined gameplay, new cards, new single-player content, and an improved new player experience.
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- Released
- 2018
- Developer
- Valve
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- 76
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- 7 GB
What is Artifact?
Artifact now features two games: Artifact Classic, the original Dota 2 trading card game, and Artifact Foundry, a special edition with streamlined gameplay, new cards, new single-player content, and an improved new player experience.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 27 November 2018 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Valve |
| Publisher | Valve |
| Platforms | PC |
| Genres | Strategy |
| Languages | 12 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata , seeded TBA. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Artifact received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Metacritic page. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Yes |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | 7 GB |
| Add-on content | None listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is Artifact worth it?
47% of 24,768 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Mixed. It is free to play, and critics score it 76/100. About 33 people were playing at once when we last checked, so it is still active.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Artifact? How long to beat it
Total play time for Artifact is about 1.2 hours to do everything, and around 1.2 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 1.2h | 1 |
Artifact is free to play, so the only cost is your time: about 1.2 hours to beat it.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Artifact sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueArtifact plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Is Artifact still active? Players right now
Artifact has a small, niche following: 33 people were playing at once when we last read Steam on 19 October 2026. This is a snapshot, not a live counter, and it is a recent concurrent reading rather than an all-time record. For what is trending across the catalogue right now, see the pulse.
How many people own Artifact
This is an estimate, not a sales figure, and the two are not interchangeable. SteamSpy samples public profiles and publishes a range; the range here spans a factor of 2.0, and that width is the honest part of it. We show both ends rather than a midpoint, because a midpoint would look like a measurement.
Steam only. Console and storefront sales are not counted, so a game that sold heavily elsewhere reads low here. Read on 19 October 2026. Where a publisher has announced a real unit figure, that appears separately and carries its source.
Artifact price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: Free on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
What readers say about Artifact
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where Artifact appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Artifact qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like Artifact
24 games overlap with Artifact on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, Slay the Spire and The Elder Scrolls: Legends.
Artifact head to head
See Artifact compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
Common questions about Artifact
What platforms is Artifact on?
Artifact is available on PC. It first released in 2018.
Is Artifact free?
Yes. Artifact is free to download on Steam.
Do players recommend Artifact?
47% of 24,768 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Mixed. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
What is the Metacritic score for Artifact?
76 out of 100 for the PC version, as published on the game's own Steam store page. Steam can lag Metacritic by a few points.
Does Artifact work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Artifact as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
How big is the Artifact download?
7 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Artifact?
Artifact was developed by Valve and published by Valve.
Is Artifact worth it in 2026?
47% of 24,768 Steam reviews are positive (Mixed), and it is free to play. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is Artifact dead?
No. About 33 people were in-game at once when we last read Steam's concurrent-player figure. Peak activity is higher; this is a recent snapshot, not the all-time peak.
How long does it take to beat Artifact?
about 1.2 hours for the main story, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.